The Toledo Harbor Lighthouse Society plans to have that opportunity available once a $1.5-2 million renovation project is complete.

“Once it’s restored, we’re hoping in two to three years, people will be able to stay out there three to four days a week,” THLS President Sandy Bihn said. “It would be about four people, two pairs in each room that obviously know each other and apply together.

“They would pay some amount to stay there. They would be the keepers at the lighthouse so that when boaters and the school children will hopefully come out and tour it, it will be manned from spring until fall. So it will be a long period of time. We are giving priority to becoming a keeper to members, so the longer you’ve been a member, you get first and then second and whatever. A lot of people are enthused about the project and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback.”

The Toledo Harbor Lighthouse is located about five miles north of Maumee Bay State Park's shores. The lighthouse marks the entrance to the Toledo shipping channel where Lake Erie and Maumee Bay meet. Boaters are generally destined for the Maumee River.

The Oregon City School Board at a meeting Nov. 29 eliminated seven teaching positions and closed Wynn Elementary School to cut $2.8 million from the budget.

The most recent round of cuts was made in the wake of the defeat of a 5.9-mill emergency levy on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The district faces a $2 million deficit for the 2011-2012 school year. The levy would have brought in $3.4 million annually.

In the last three years, the school board has cut $8 million from the operating budget.

The district issued a position statement last summer that outlined plans to reduce the operating budget further by $2 million for the 2011-2012 school year if the levy did not pass. Those cuts included cutting 20 additional teaching and staff positions, eliminating the Career & Tech program, reducing kindergarten from all day every day to all day every other day, increasing athletic participation fees, reducing cleaning services to buildings, eliminating or significantly reducing bus service for all high school students, and implementing a process to close an elementary school and/or reconfigure the district.

Oregon City Council on Nov. 15 unanimously approved a special use exception for the Oregon City Schools District so it can install wind turbines, despite pleas from bird watchers to delay action so they could study the possible effects of turbines on bird mortality.

Jim Gilmore, commissioner of building and zoning, said one turbine will be 286 feet in height, and one will be 279 feet in height

They will be able to withstand winds in excess of 100 miles per hour.

The school district had requested the special use permit for the parcel, at 5665 Seaman Road, to install the turbines in an R-1 Low Density Residential District.

The Oregon Planning Commission on Oct. 19 voted 3-0 to recommend approval of the special use exception. Before council voted, a public hearing was held that included comments from both supporters and opponents of the zoning change.

Between mid-April and the end of May, an estimated 50,000 bird watchers arrive from around the world, pumping an estimated $17-24 million into the local economy.

The Black Swamp Bird Observatory is seeking a three-year moratorium on additional wind turbines within three miles of the Lake Erie Shores in Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Erie counties until research, including radar studies, on how the turbines affect the lives of nocturnal migrants can be completed.

The BSBO has established an online petition, co-sponsored by the Ohio Ornithological Society and Greater Mohican Audubon Society, with a link at www.bsbobird.org. The BSBO is also seeking letters of support to be written to elected officials and is asking for financial contributions to support the effort.